Coastal California: We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you find beach digs?

I have some tips here on sleeping cheaply in Santa Monica, Catalina Island (above) and Santa Barbara, but first, two questions:

What if Robin Hood wore board shorts instead of green tights? And what if he were a state government bureaucrat?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the California Coastal Commission. These commissioners and staffers typically earn headlines by battling with developers and homeowners over construction and public access along this state’s protected shoreline.

Occasionally, you might glimpse one of the agency’s guidebooks, or catch wind of its efforts to complete a 1,100-mile coastal trail, so that hikers can cover California from top to bottom. But the commission, which was created by statewide ballot initiative in 1972, is also supposed to help provide affordable coastal lodging.

And sometimes it succeeds. If all goes according to plan, for instance, we’ll soon have the commission, and actor turned developer Fess Parker, to thank for 100 new hostel rooms in otherwise upscale Santa Barbara. And then, sometime after that, perhaps more affordable rooms in Long Beach.

Of course, if you’re a developer and you’d rather not have these funds extracted every time you build a fancy coastal project, you might not be such a fan. But wherever your opinion falls, you might be surprised at the role the commission has played at many coastal California hostels and campgrounds that have been in business for years.

For more than three decades, the commission has been forcing developers to help underwrite hostels and campgrounds in a bid to give travelers more budget coastal options. I never realized the extent of this work until recently, when I started planning to drive the California coast and stay in hotels at water’s edge.

Looking for a little background, I called the commission’s legislative liaison coordinator, Sarah Christie, who offered up a list of commission projects aimed at keeping our beach trips cheap. Maybe you already knew about some of the budget lodging options below, but who knew that an arm of our state government — our embattled, indecisive, cash-starved state government — played a role in making them happen?

First, the Santa Barbara hostel rooms. Back in the 1990s, hotelier and former coonskin-hat-wearer Parker laid plans to build a new hotel along the city’s waterfront. Sure, said the Coastal Commission — if you promise to set aside park land and build a hostel. Parker agreed.

Of course there were delays and skirmishes, and the upscale hotel isn’t done yet. But the park exists (Chase Palm Park) and construction began last year on the hostel at 12 E. Montecito St. The Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau reports that the 100-bed facility, to be operated by the Parker-created Rodney Shull Memorial Foundation, is expected to open later this year.

When it does, Santa Barbara will have two hostels. The other is the Santa Barbara Tourist Hostel (134 Chapala St., [805] 963-0154), which has 48 beds. February rates there are $22-$25 beds, $73-$89 per room.

(By the way, I’m not pitching the Coastal Commission as an ideal public agency. If it were, somebody would have promptly returned my two calls to its Ventura office, seeking more details on the Santa Barbara hostel.)

Meanwhile, down in Los Angeles County, the 260-bed Hostelling International Santa Monica (1436 2nd St., Santa Monica; [310] 393-9913), where rates begin at $28 nightly, has its own Coastal Commission connections.

John Estrada, executive director of Hostelling International’s Los Angeles Council, recalls that when the four-story, $5-million Santa Monica building went up in 1989 (it’s about two blocks from the beach), about $730,000 of the money came from Marina del Rey developers who were forced to ante up by the commission. Then in 2005, when the Santa Monica hostel added 60 beds, Estrada said, about $800,000 of the $2-million cost came from more developer dollars redirected by the commission.

Now the hostel people have an additional $1.6 million set aside for a new project, probably 100 to 150 beds, perhaps in the Long Beach area. And yes, said Estrada, about a third of that came out of a Coastal Commission agreement with developers, this time those behind the high-end Terranea resort. That resort is scheduled to open on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in June, with rates of $290 and up.

As for campsites with Coastal Commission fingerprints on them, look no farther than San Onofre and Catalina.

In 1988, the Coastal Commission’s Christie said, when local utilities were upgrading the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Clemente, the Coastal Commission required them to compensate for the loss of public beach access by bankrolling the creation of the 162-site San Mateo campground at neighboring San Onofre State Beach.

On Catalina, the Hermit Gulch Campground, 150 Metropole Ave., Avalon; [310] 510-8368) came about in a similar way. The Santa Catalina Island Co. wanted to build a residential project nearby and the Coastal Commission required the company to earmark land for a campground. So in 1988, the 120-site campground was born. It’s the only such facility in Avalon, about 1.5 miles from the island’s main boat landing, so it’s very busy in summer. But where else in Avalon can you sleep for $12 per adult per night?

– Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: Hermit Gulch Campground on Catalina Island by Tim Hubbard / Los Angeles Times]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 12:10 pm by Christopher Reynolds and is filed under Business Travel, California, California's Central Coast, Family & Kids, Los Angeles, News, Tips & Advice, Outdoors & Adventure, San Diego, Santa Barbara. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.